“I hate them,” Gregg muttered as he squinted up at the swarming creatures. “They fight the whole night in the spotted gum outside my bedroom window. Like bloody witches bickering in a coven. And they stink.”
Everyone was on edge over the giant flying foxes that had mysteriously migrated en masse to the region recently. They’d begun arriving in swarms when one of the gum varieties had suddenly blossomed, and then more and more of the megabats had come flying along the highway like a portent of doom, gradually increasing in numbers until nearly every building, rock, tree, and vehicle in the town just south of Jarrawarra was covered with them.
“Like a Hitchcock movie,” she said.
Somewhere, a kookaburra laughed.
The boat rocked as Mac guided their craft into the choppier water of Agnes Basin. The water body was vast—almost forty square kilometers—and full of the giant jellyfish. Like bubble tea.
“You go about another half kilometer up the east side of the basin, over there,” Barney said as he pointed the way for their skipper, his voice hoarse and quavery. “And then you turn into a deep, narrow channel. That’s where it is.” Barney’s complexion was bloodless beneath a map of red veins. Sweat sheened the old man’s face, and he swiped his sleeve across his brow. Lozza noticed the man’s hands trembled. Maybe Barney needed a drink. Or maybe he was rattled. Maybe both.
Barney had gone to check on his “noncompliant” crab traps. Instead, he’d discovered the body of a blond male tangled underwater in one of his lines.
“There—that’s the channel entrance.” Barney gestured toward a dark gap amid the mangrove trees. “You go in there.”
Mac slowed the launch, steering them carefully into the channel. Water slapped and chuckled against the prow. Heat grew wetter. Branches clawed at them from the sides, and twigs scraped softly against the hull. Mac slowed the engine further. It grew darker as they went in deeper. Hotter. Clouds of mosquitoes buzzed over the water, and tiny bugs got trapped in the orange frizz of hair that had sprung out around Lozza’s face in spite of her best efforts to marshal it all back into a tidy bun.
Mac switched on the spotlights, and eerie shapes and shadows jumped at them. A sense of a presence oozed out of the swamp, like something hidden, waiting, biding its time to clutch at them. The air smelled foul.
“You think it’s him—Cresswell-Smith?” Gregg asked.
“Would be weird,” she said.
“Right,” he said. “Because if he went overboard ten klicks out to sea, how could he have washed in here? Doesn’t make any sense.”
Lozza flicked a glance at the newly minted constable fresh off probation. He talked too much. Especially when nervous. Or anytime, really. It annoyed the hell out of Lozza. Her default on the job was to go silent. She also knew her irritation stemmed in part from the fact that Gregg was good-looking and she was secretly attracted to the surfer turned cop. He’d come to policing later than most. He still ran his surf school on the side, and he’d helped teach Lozza’s daughter to surf. But good-looking men tended not to notice Lozza in that way. Which tended to make her a little bitter toward them.
Thunder clapped and lightning pulsed, turning their surroundings into a sudden freeze-frame of black and white. A few plops of rain hit the water. Lozza’s mind turned to the day she’d first met Martin Cresswell-Smith’s wife on the beach. It would be Lozza’s task to inform Ellie if this was her husband tangled in Barney’s crab-pot lines. Ellie’s words from their earlier interview swam into her mind.
“I hope you don’t find him. And if you do, I hope he’s dead and that he suffered.”
“There!” Barney pointed suddenly. “I tied my crab pots to some roots behind that jetty jutting out over there.”
Mac cut the engine and they drifted with the current, listening to the small waves chuckle against the hull as they floated toward the jetty. Thunder cracked and silver light flashed. Everything turned darker as the sun slipped below the horizon and storm clouds shouldered across the sky.
Lozza took her flashlight from her duty belt, clicked it on, and panned her beam over the jetty. She saw where Barney had tied some frayed-looking ropes to mangrove roots. The jetty itself was new—constructed as part of the controversial Agnes Marina development, which Martin Cresswell-Smith and his wife, Ellie, were spearheading. Barney had explained to Lozza how he used decayed-looking ropes above the surface of the water to hide the fact that his illegal pots were down beneath. But underwater, the old rope ends had been affixed to bright-orange polypropylene—or polyprop—lines that led to the pots. When Barney had returned to check his pots earlier today, he’d pulled on his lines and one had stuck fast. Rather than cutting the rope and losing a pot potentially full of good muddies, he’d decided to return with a mate’s son to untangle the lines. The teen had gone into the water with goggles and fins, pulling himself down to the bottom along the orange polyprop. In the murky water he had come face-to-face with a body tangled in the line.
The kid had flailed wildly to the surface, gasping for air. Barney told him they couldn’t leave “it” down there. “It” could be someone they knew. So the poor kid had plucked up the courage to go down once more. He’d cut through the rope with a knife. The body had shot straight up to the surface like a gas-filled balloon, popping out into a small cove behind the jetty, where it had drifted up against the mangrove roots on the far end.
“It got lodged in the roots,” Barney had said. “That’s when we gapped it back to the open water of the basin, where we could get better mobile reception. And I called you coppers.”
Mac allowed the police launch to drift slightly past the jetty, angling his craft so that the spotlights illuminated the shallow inlet. They saw it almost instantly—the gleam of fish-belly-white skin. A khaki shirt. Yellow-blond hair. No pants. The white buttocks cutting like half moons just above the surface as the floater bobbed in the reeds against a tangle of roots, trapped there by the gentle push of the current.
Barney made a rapid sign of the cross over himself.
“Tie up to the jetty,” Lozza ordered Mac. “Gregg and I can bushwhack from the end of the jetty to the other side of that cove.” Mac fired up the engines, and with a growl of bubbles, the boat surged toward the dock, connecting with a bump. Shadows leaped. The water around the pilings and roots made a slopping sound. Thunder cracked right above them and lightning split the air. Rain started to pummel down steadily, pocking and splashing the dark water, droplets silvery in the glare of the spotlights.
Lozza and Gregg climbed onto the jetty. Both used flashlights to navigate from the end of the jetty into the swamp forest. Lozza expanded her baton and used it to thwack through the tangle of grasses and reeds. Snakes were a concern. She hoped the action would chase them off. Gregg stayed close behind her. He swatted at clouds of mosquitoes, cursing. The bugs seemed to prefer his blood to hers.
It gave Lozz a punch of satisfaction. It wasn’t only women who flocked around the Adonis cop.
They reached the floater. Pressure built in Lozza’s chest. The body was definitely male. He lay facedown, arms flopping at his sides with the swell. The khaki shirt matched what Martin Cresswell-Smith had been wearing when he’d gone fishing four days ago. The head of thick blond hair was a match. Body was the right size and general shape, too. He’d been a decent-looking bastard—like a rugged and bronzed rugby god, with swagger and charm to match, when he chose to use it. But Lozza had glimpsed something dark and sinister beneath the skin of Martin Cresswell-Smith.
She crouched down at the edge of the bank and studied the scene, taking care not to slip down the slick bank or to touch anything right away. She knew the drill. She’d been with the New South Wales homicide squad for years before she’d relocated to the South Coast and returned to general duties. She still retained her detective status, although she was not referred to as Detective because she was not assigned full-time to investigative duties.
Another silvery sheet of lightning pulsed as Lozza tracked the be
am of her torch slowly over the body.
Gregg said, “You think it’s him?”
Lozza definitely thought it was. But Gregg was right—nothing about that made sense. Martin Cresswell-Smith’s boat had been seen leaving the Bonny River boat ramp, which was a half hour’s drive down the coast. He’d logged in with marine rescue and told them he was heading out to sea in a southeast direction. If he’d had an accident at sea, there was no way his body could have washed all the way north up the coast and then into the Agnes River mouth and all the way into this channel via Agnes Basin.
“And if this is him,” Gregg said, “where’s his boat—where’s the Abracadabra?”
“Gregg, shut up a minute. Please.”
He swatted at another mosquito. Flies buzzed over the corpse. Lozza panned her flashlight over to the man’s left hand. A wedding band embedded with a red stone encircled the floater’s ring finger. She’d seen that ring before. On Martin. But there was no Rolex on the floater’s wrist. Martin Cresswell-Smith had gone missing with a very expensive bronze-colored Rolex Daytona.
Gregg clouted another mosquito. His violent movement made the beam of his flashlight dart across the mangroves. A black thing exploded out of the darkness. Gregg sidestepped a terrified shag, his foot going down too close to the edge of the bank. He slipped and fell into the water with a loud splash. Gregg swore and scrambled wildly to get back out, bumping the body. It lolled onto its back.
Gregg froze.
Lozza went dead still.
Empty eye sockets stared up at them. The corpse’s lips and nose had been shredded off. The tender areas of the groin were gone. Replaced by a writhing mass of sea lice. But it was something else that snared Lozza’s focus.
The hook of a silver hand gaff had been sunk deep into the decedent’s chest. On the handle in black letters was the word Abracadabra. And what appeared to be stab wounds from a knife punctured the shirt all over the man’s torso. He’d been stabbed easily fifteen times. Lozza leaned in, bringing her flashlight beam closer. A dark ligature mark circled the man’s swollen neck. There were more ligature marks around the wrists. A rope was still tied around the bare ankles. Lozza’s heart beat slow and steady. Her attention shifted down the length of the man’s right arm. He was missing three fingers. Cut nice and clean above the joints. Neater than a mud crab’s work.
Gregg sloshed and clambered out of the water and up onto the bank. He took two steps into the grass, braced his hands on his knees, and retched.
Lozza returned her attention to the rope around the decedent’s ankles. Polyprop. Bright yellow and blue. Not Barney’s. If she were a betting woman, Lozza would bet that the rest of this yellow-and-blue line had been used to anchor this victim to something heavy underwater, where crabs and fish and sea lice and other mangrove critters would have picked his bones clean in a few more days. And then the bones would have disarticulated and buried themselves deep in the soft silt. There’d have been nothing left to find of this body. Except Barney and his crab pot had come along and gotten tangled in a killer’s lines.
Her mind shot back to Ellie—her apparent memory loss and strange actions. A sick feeling filled Lozza’s gut. Had she played them? Was she still playing them all? Every goddamn step of the way?
Because this sure as hell was no deep-sea fishing accident. This was no ordinary husband missing at sea. This was murder.
Lozza reached for her phone to call it in. While she and Gregg were the first responding officers, this would need to be run out of State Crime Command.
And right now Ellie Cresswell-Smith was the key person of interest.
THE MURDER TRIAL
Now, February. Supreme Court, New South Wales.
I focus on keeping my hands in my lap as Molly Konikova, the Crown prosecutor, rises. The barrister positions her binder upon a lectern on the prosecuting side of the bar table. She’s tiny—birdlike—swallowed by her silk robe, which drapes around her like oversize black wings. Thin lips. Beaked nose. Bony, fluttery hands. Her hair, a dun color, hangs in lackluster strands to her jawline beneath her gray wig. Excitement jabs through me—she’s a cartoon, a caricature of ineptitude and weakness. Surely the jury of twelve sensible-looking citizens seated across the room from me in the dock will take my defense barrister far more seriously than this sparrow-creature? My barrister is tall and pale-skinned with a head of thick dark hair, physically toned, his judicial garb more elegant than sinister. A man who radiates a calm and sophisticated intelligence, a man who can read the minds of a jury and spin a con, because he is a magician himself.
Konikova eyes me. Her gaze is cool. Direct. Almost steely. Perhaps I’ve misread her? No, I don’t think so. She waits a beat, then turns her gaze on the jury—seven males, five females. The men average older. My odds lie with the men, I think. Women are the harshest critics of each other. I suspect this is because the flaws we see in other women are flaws we hate to acknowledge in ourselves. Being critical, lashing out at other females, is a way of attacking those traits within ourselves that we detest most.
Silence presses into the courtroom. Tension grows thick. The air is too warm, no natural light. Anxiety blooms in my chest. I flick a glance toward the shut doors. I’ve never tolerated well the sense of being boxed in. Suddenly the thought of year upon year of incarceration—twenty-five to life—fills me with such a clear and singular dread that I can taste it in the form of bile at the back of my throat. I moisten my lips. I concentrate on keeping my hands motionless. I aim my toes toward the jury bench, as I’ve been schooled. It keeps me facing in the most advantageous direction, I’ve been told.
Konikova begins her address to the court, and her voice startles me. It doesn’t match her appearance. It’s big. Amplified by the microphone. Assured yet friendly. My heart beats faster.
I’ve been told voice is key for advocacy. A trial advocate with a voice that does not project functions at a constant disadvantage. After all, it’s theater. Barristers are performers, consummate story spinners, and not every solicitor has what it takes to become an advocate. My anxiety tightens. Perhaps I really have misjudged the prosecutor. I’m slipping.
“. . . and over the course of this trial,” she is saying, “what will emerge is a shocking portrait of a woman who grew so embittered, so enraged by jealousy and betrayal, so hateful of her husband, that she cunningly and systematically plotted the ultimate revenge. Murder.” Konikova waits a beat. The only sound is the scratching of the court artist’s chalk.
“Granted,” says Konikova, “the victim, Martin Cresswell-Smith, was no angel himself. By all accounts he was a sociopath who brought out the very worst in his wife, but she also brought out the worst in him. Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell-Smith’s relationship devolved into a vicious spiral, a devious battle to the ultimate end. Death.” Another pause. The sketch artist glances up, assesses me, and resumes her work. I wonder what—or who—she is seeing.
I am a victim. I am demure. Wronged.
“And this heinous war that was waged between Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell-Smith was not isolated to the couple. They took innocent people down in collateral damage.”
There is a stirring in the public gallery. Many of the observers are cops. Newspapers have speculated that one of Lorrington’s legal strategies will be to undermine and discredit the key investigators on the case—Detective Senior Constable Laurel “Lozza” Bianchi, Detective Sergeant Corneil Tremayne, and Constable Gregg Abbott. So this is personal for them. The jurors seem to be leaning almost imperceptibly forward. The Crown prosecutor has hooked them. She’s begun reeling them in. And they all want to play their part in the resolution. They want to see a Villain. They want to see the Villain grovel, go down, and be punished by the might of the law. They need to see a Hero triumph. It will make them feel good about the world. Konikova is giving them exactly what they’ve come for, a chance to do their civic and honorable duty and set right a hideous wrong. I know how this works.
I hate her from this instant and I struggle to ref
ocus on her words, which are suddenly blurring in my head.
“. . . and step by logical step, founded on irrefutable forensic evidence, on police statements, on the testimonies of witnesses, and on the expert assessment of a forensic psychologist, the Crown will demonstrate to Your Honor that this defendant”—she swings the back of her hand in my direction, waits for all the members of the jury to look directly at me, to get a good, long look—“is a cunning, cold, calculating mastermind. A chameleon who is able to project a demure countenance. Do not be fooled by her ruse,” Konikova says. “Because at the end of the day you will be left with no choice but to find her guilty on all charges.”
A rustle of activity passes like an invisible current through the audience. Reporters scribble fervently in their notebooks. I swallow. A drop of sweat slithers between my breasts. I pin my desperate desire for freedom on Peter Lorrington and his legal team.
Konikova tips her wigged head toward Lorrington. “No doubt my esteemed colleague of the bar will attempt to obfuscate matters. Misdirect. He will offer to you alternate versions of events and attempt to match them to the facts. But remember, it’s just that. A story—a fiction. Smoke and mirrors. He will likely spin for you a narrative of a victim who fell prey to an abusive and domineering husband who pushed her to the very edge of her sanity.” Konikova pauses and nods. “Yes, he thinks you are gullible. Psychologists will tell you that gullibility is deeply engrained in all of us, and when immersed in a story that stirs emotions, it’s easy to let your guard down. Your duty is to not succumb, to not let your guard down, to keep your eye on the ball.”
Lorrington straightens his gown and glances up at the ceiling, as if bored.
“The defense will attempt to malign the hard work of police officers. The defense will try to serve up surrogate suspects. All just to create the faint possibility of reasonable doubt. To believe the defense will be to allow a woman to get away with the murder of her husband. You cannot do that. You are here to perform a civic role. You are here to correct a wrong. And what has been done here is a serious wrong. Let us set it right.”
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